Pacers center Roy Hibbert has 18 points and nine fouls in three games of the first-round series with the Hawks. / Andy Lyons. Getty Images

by Bob Kravitz, USA TODAY Sports

by Bob Kravitz, USA TODAY Sports

ATLANTA - One picture spoke a thousand words. Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert had just fumbled a perfect interior pass from Evan Turner right at the rim, and the TV cameras caught team President Larry Bird holding his head in his hands.

What could he have been thinking at that moment in the second quarter of the Pacers' 98-85 Game 3 loss to the Atlanta Hawks?

I'm paying this guy $14 million and change? ... How am I ever going to unload him in the off-season?... Is it too late to rename Area 55 to Area 28?

It's really very simple and kind of sad given the deep reservoir of goodwill the big man has built up in Indianapolis: Hibbert is killing the Pacers right now. He can't catch a pass. He can't get a rebound. He can't make a shot, either from mid-range or from right in front of the rim. And if coach Frank Vogel stays with him, if Vogel continues to start him or play him a significant number of minutes, he deserves to go down with the sinking ship.

The bottom line is, the Pacers are better right now with a front line that features David West and Luis Scola, a fact that was hammered home when the Pacers used the small lineup to make a middling fourth-quarter run at the Hawks.

After the game, Vogel was asked several times, in several different ways, if Hibbert would be in the starting lineup Saturday afternoon for Game 4.

"We'll see,'' he said. He paused. "Probably.''

Feel free to read a lot into that response. Because he is, in fact, thinking about putting Hibbert on the bench. In the past, Vogel would never remotely entertain the notion of doing anything other than starting and playing Hibbert, but twice he was asked if Hibbert would start, and twice he said, "We'll see.''

"We'll look at everything,'' Vogel continued. "I can't say (he's starting in Game 4) for right now. But I do have confidence in Roy Hibbert. I do have that. He hasn't played well in this series to this point, but I do have great confidence in him.

"We're not going to quit on him. We're going to keep trying to figure it out.''

Asked once again why Hibbert was the Pacers best answer as the starting center, Vogel said, "We'll see. He's our anchor. We won 56 games with him as our starter. That's the simplest answer.''

The Pacers have reached the point of diminishing returns with Hibbert. The numbers tell the story: He had four points on 2-of-9 shooting, two rebounds and two turnovers in 19 minutes. And that doesn't even rate as his least productive game in this series. He's a lost soul right now, and Vogel seemed to recognize that, sitting Hibbert the entire fourth quarter as the Pacers tried to close in on the 3-point-shooting Hawks.

This is no time to be stubborn.

He has no place on the court, not now, not in this increasingly dangerous series.

"I've just got to figure it out and be ready,'' Hibbert said softly in the Pacers' postgame locker room. "It's my fault.''

Now, we're blasting Hibbert here, but it's not entirely on him. (A lot of it is, but not all of it.)

Paul George is supposed to be the rising star of this team, the guy who gave the Pacers 27 points and 10 rebounds in the Game 2 victory, but he got out-played by somebody named DeMarre Carroll. George, who got two early fouls, finished with 12 points on 3-of-11 shooting and was often reduced to playing hero ball, going one-on-one against Carroll on the wing. Carroll, meanwhile, had 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting.

"Those early fouls, I've got to sit and it just takes me completely out of my zone,'' George said.

The postgame talk was the same talk we've been hearing all week - shoot, all month.

They failed to defend without fouling; Atlanta hit 30 of 37 free throws while Indiana, purportedly the more physical team, shot just 21 free throws.

They failed to close out on 3-point shooters. After Atlanta went 2-of-16 from 3 in the first half, it then made 10-of-18 in the second half.

They failed to keep Jeff Teague under control and out of the paint. The Indy native had 22 points and 10 assists.

A recipe for losing. Again.

Pacers fans will surely lament the officials' missed out-of-bounds call on Teague's Kevin Durant-esque 3-point prayer, and yes, his foot was out of bounds. But that's not the over-arching reason the Pacers lost this game. They lost because their star, George, wasn't a star and hasn't consistently been a star since the All-Star break. They lost because Hibbert can't get out of his own way these days. They lost because George Hill was as quiet on the court as he was in the locker room after the game, hitting just 1-of-11 shots. They lost because they simply aren't the team they once were, not even close.

Now it's time for Vogel to take desperate measures, the kind of measures that might help him keep his job, if we're to believe ESPN.com's anonymous sources. It's time to start Hill and Stephenson with George, West and Scola.